Bystander CPR saves lives

Creating communities of lifesavers

Over 350,000 people suffer out-of-hospital cardiac arrests each year in the U.S. Approximately just over 10% of them survive. Survival depends on getting CPR immediately from a bystander within the first few minutes following cardiac arrest, before first responders arrive. This can double, or even triple, a victim’s chance of survival—but less than half of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest sufferers receive the lifesaving CPR they need from a bystander.1

When every minute is crucial, it’s critical for people to act—but many Americans lack the knowledge or confidence to perform CPR in an emergency.2 The solution lies in widespread community CPR training. Educating the lay public on the importance of CPR and how to perform it will increase the number of lifesavers in our communities.

Laerdal and the American Heart Association

Laerdal has collaborated with the American Heart Association on a number of projects designed to help save lives through the implementation of medical science and evidence-based educational products in Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC). These include the CPR Anytime® kit, HeartCode® eSimulation courses, and the Resuscitation Quality Improvement (RQI®) program.

American Heart Association – Community CPR Initiatives

The American Heart Association has implemented training programs to put more qualified lifesavers in our communities.

Adult & Child CPR Anytime®

CPR Anytime® allows users to learn skills anywhere, from large group settings to the comfort of their own homes.

This kit is designed to be shared among close family and friends. For every kit distributed, it is estimated that 2.5 additional people are trained. In fact, some CPR Anytime programs report that as many as 7-8 additional people per kit receive training.

Infant CPR Anytime®

CPR in Schools Training Kit™

Designed precisely for educational environments, the American Heart Association's CPR in Schools Training Kit™ enables students to learn the lifesaving skills of CPR in just one class period. The kit contains everything needed to train 10-20 people at once, and it can be facilitated by anyone.

Ken is alive today because he received CPR from a bystander

When Ken went into a life-threatening cardiac arrest while playing soccer with his kids, his wife performed CPR and saved his life.

Community CPR: A Critical Link in the Chain of Survival

We asked five thought leaders to share their insights on community CPR. Read what they had to say about the importance of bystander CPR training.

If you haven’t improved your community, where people are not only having a chance but really are being resuscitated in higher numbers, then there’s no reason to get excited about post-resuscitation care. … The foundation has to be good bystander involvement.

Karl Kern, MD Professor, University of Arizona

Bystander CPR is arguably the most important link in the chain of survival. Every study that’s ever been published has shown that bystander CPR will increase survival by 2 to 3 fold. … With the advent of hands-only CPR, we have a huge opportunity to train lots of people very quickly—and so we have a real opportunity to change behavior.

The fact that somebody is doing something before we get there gives the patient a better positive chance at a recovery, it gives us something better to work with – it’s a perfused heart, it’s more susceptible to the medicines we give, the procedures that we’re able to perform, and the hope to have that positive outcome.

Craig Baughnsmith, Mobile Intensive Care Paramedic, King County Medic One

My passion in life…is to help educate the community, and everyone there, on what to do when something happens — so they don’t stand there feeling helpless. We want them to recognize an arrest, we want them to immediately activate the emergency medical system by calling 911, and then put their hands in the middle of the chest and push hard and fast. ... This is going to maximize the opportunity for survival.

Efficient Teaching for Effective Learning

Little Anne QCPR allows an instructor to monitor up to six learners at the same time from the palm of their hand. The Instructor App provides an easy to view performance summary that highlights which students may require further guidance.

At a glance you can pick up who is not compressing deeply enough, who is not compressing at the correct rate and who is overventilating.

How Laerdal can help

Community initiatives to increase CPR training as well as improve the quality of CPR delivered are critical to increasing survival. By implementing widespread programs to train CPR and providing frequent, high quality training that is systematically measured to guide performance, we can help save more lives, together.

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